Wednesday, April 6, 2011

So you think you're smarter than a rat.

One benefit to being in the Psychology program is that you get to train rats. I was assigned to work with rat #1 of the USU psych lab. His name is Eugene and he is a very smart rat in some ways and very a stupid one in others.
We're supposed to teach these rats do do a trick and then to only do the trick when a flash light is lit in their training cell. Eugene learned really fast that he was supposed to go through the hoop and look up in order to get his little treat but sometimes he gets frustrated and goes for the more the more feral approach.
Yesterday he was doing great until he noticed my hand was holding the flash light over his cell. He thought in his head "hmm, flashlight=food, bite flashlight!" unfortunately my hand was infront of the flash light and that is what his little yellow teeth caught hold of. I admit it hurt and it bled a bit but what really shocked me was how my hand looked after riding my bake to work.
I don't get queezy at the sight of blood but apparently i can't stand the smell of the iron in it. I guess I would fail miserably as a vampire.

Jake, don't bit the hand that feeds you.

2 comments:

Teresa W said...

Eugene is so adorable!!! Makes me miss Izzy and Daizy.
You could always try my method: where leather gloves when handling rats that aren't normal :)

Stephanie said...

Sorry to hear. Better learn to toughen up when you have kids. When Garrett ran into the corner of the wall and split his forehead open, pools of blood came gushing out. I was using handtowels and they were soaked. I admit the smell was almost too much.